Thursday, July 28, 2016

The global EV market continues to grow at rapid pace, with over 68.000 units delivered in May, representing a 61% growth YoY, with the YTD total up 49%, we are headed for a total sales number this year of over 800.000 units, not the Million a year that everybody was hoping for, but an encouraging number nonetheless.

In the models ranking, the Best Seller of the Month was the Tesla Model S, thanks to the usual last-month-of-the-quarter-peak (5.401 units), winning for the second time this year the Best Seller Of The Month award, with the first time unsurprisingly being in March (You see the pattern, right?), then with 7.777 units.

Looking below in the ranking, the BYD Qin was up two places to #8, thanks to 2.751 units, a year best, although still far from last last year record (4.030 in July), BYD's 300hp sedan has potential to climb even further in the ranking, possibly even repeating last year position (Fourth Place).

As this is a Full Year special edition, we dig a little deeper, into the Top 20, where we can see five chinese models (#11 Roewe e550, #12 JAC i EV, #13 Kandi EV, #16 JMC E100, #19 Chery eQ), making it nine models coming from China in the Top 20.

The Tesla Model X it's starting to appear on the radar, in #15, having been #10 in June, expect the Minivan-that-thinks-is-a-Sports-SUV to climb to the Top 10 later in the year.

Comparing with last year, while some models climbed positions, like the BYD Tang, now #3, or its e6 older brother (#10 now vs #22 in '15), others dropped significantly, none more so than the Volkswagen Golf GTE, #18 now, when last year it ended in #10. Just to have an idea of the dimension of the sales drop, in June '15 it had registered 1.863 units, while last month it had only 717...

Looking at the BEV / PHEV breakdown, despite a slow start, BEV's are once again leading the race with 60% share, exactly the same number as when it ended 2015.

BYD has set an ambitious goal of doubling sales regarding 2015, and after a slow start, the Chinese brand is pushing hard to reach its own goals, in June it delivered 10,129 units, just short of its best performance ever (Last December, with 10.148 units).Will BYD beat its own record in July? It all points to that, the question will be by how much, the demand is there, it all will depend on their ability to deliver accordingly.

Looking elsewhere, Tesla went back to Second Place and with the Model X finally without major production constraints, expect the Fremont-based automaker to be a hard cookie to remove from the Silver Medal Place.

As this is a Full Year edition, we dig a littler deeper into the Top 20, where we see Zotye in an unusually low #13, compensated by JAC (#11 now vs #17 in '15) and Roewe (#12 vs #15) brilliant performances, with JMC also impressing.

As for newcomers, the most important is closing the ranking in #20, Geely, owner of Volvo, is finally entering the EV Game for real and has a lot of potential to grow, something that can also be said regarding the Chinese EV industry, if you don't believe it, just look at the numbers...

...In 2014, Chinese automakers had 17% of the World EV Market, in 2015 their share grew to 32% and half year passed into 2016, their share is at 39%.

Not only that, i expect Chinese car makers to have over 50% of the total EV market by December, 31st. Yes, in 2016.

So regardless of what happens outside China (Anti-Tesla & EV lobbying, Trump, Brexit, etc), the EV (R)evolution will happen, the only question is: Will traditional automakers be part of it or will they go the way of Dinosaurs, replaced by new, more evolved kids, like Tesla and the Chinese car makers?

Tuesday, July 26, 2016

The European EV market
had more than 17.000 registrations last month, representing a 1% increase
over June 2015, the slowdown in these last couple of months is due to the
fiscal changes in Germany. Nevertheless, the market is set to surpass the
200.000 units by year end, possibly even reaching 250.000 units. Let's look at the Monthly Ranking:

#1 Renault Zoe – Despite dropping 3% YoY
to 2.481 units, the French hatchback
is finally fulfilling expectations, with Renault actively selling the car,
resulting in the Zoe reaching the monthly leadership for the third time this
year. With the French auto market going into holiday-season mode for the next two months, Germany, Zoe’s second
largest market, will have to make up for the loss. Good thing then that a tidal
wave of sales is expected there, now that the incentives just kicked in…

#2 Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV – The Japanese
SUV sales have dropped 12% YoY, to 1.757
units, ending the month in Second. Although growing
in important markets, like Norway or Sweden, Mitsubishi hasn’t found a way to
replace the average 300-400 units/month it had last year in the Dutch market
and to stop the sales slowdown in the UK.

#3 Nissan Leaf – Sales of the Japanese
hatch were up 7% in May, to 1.572 units,
not that far from the Outlander PHEV, and it has to thank to France and Norway
for that, where it sells more than half of its volume. The question is: Can it
keep up? The Leaf is getting a bit old now, and 250 kms range are not enough to
fight longer range BEV’s (New BMW i3, 2017 Chevrolet Bolt Opel
Ampera-e…) coming soon, so unless
something happens, the most common
EV in the world will have a hard time in Europe in the next year or so.

#4 Tesla Model S – The (not so) surprise
of the month, Tesla’s Sports-Sedan-that’s-actually-a-Liftback offered the usual last month of the quarter peak performance,
reaching #4, with 1.484 units, a
somewhat disappointing result, considering that in the last sales peak (March
’16), it had 2.380 units and in June 2015, 2.104 deliveries. Is the Model S
becoming passé, now that the Model X
is arriving to European shores?

#5 VW Passat GTE – Thanks to Sweden and
Norway, where, combined, it sold 686 units, Volkswagen’s midsize offering
reached the Fifth Position in June, with 1.117
units, its best score this year. With the right mix of space, practicality,
low carbon emissions and power, the Passat GTE is destined for success as
company car for middle managers across Europe, something that could only be
potentiated by the new incentives in Germany. Will we see it reach the podium this
summer?

YTD Ranking

Looking at the YTD
ranking, the Renault Zoe has finally risen to the leadership, dropping the
Outlander PHEV to the Second Position, but not all are bad news for the
Japanese SUV, despite the #3 Nissan Leaf being only 249 units behind, there are
no short term prospects for the Nissan hatch to outrun it, unless, of course,
there is some unexpected wizardry coming from Nissan in the final months of the
year… (wink, wink)

If the podium
positions are open to discussion, the apparent race for #6 will no longer exist
in the coming months, with BMW presumably delivering a tsunami of i3’s soon, enough to recover the #6 and even put pressure on the
underperforming #5 VW Golf GTE, affected by its Passat GTE sibling success.

While the revised
i3 hasn't yet arrived, BMW has already its hands full with their most recent
PHEV’s. The 330e has risen to #13, thanks to 497 units sold in June, while the 225xe
Active Tourer joined the Top 20 in #14, thanks to a personal record of 484
units, expect these two to continue rising in the ranking it the second half of
the year.

For some models to
climb, others have to come down and we are giving a few lines on them. If
regarding 2015, the Volvo V60 Plug-in dropping eight places to #17, falls into
the logic of things, given the increase of competition (BMW 330e, Mercedes
C350e, VW Passat GTE…), with more or less the same going for the six positions
drop of the #10 VW e-Golf (Nissan Leaf 30 kWh, upcoming Tesla Model 3, confusingly
named Opel Ampera-e…), the four positions drop of the #11 Audi A3 e-Tron is
harder to understand, as it hasn’t got any direct new rival this year.

Looking at the manufacturers
ranking, the trophy bearer Volkswagen (16%), has lost some advantage over
Renault (15%, up 1%), while the increasingly menacing BMW (13%) has risen to
Third, dropping Nissan (12%, down 1%) to Fourth.

With the 33 kWh
BMW i3 coming soon, expect the Bavarian brand to continue winning market share
and even possibly becoming the Best Selling plug-in automaker in Europe.

5) The US market is growing 18%, which is leading to a 136k total number, which is 34k below expected. Then again, the Chevy Bolt and Prius Prime might still pull the market up, right?

6) With the Model S at 11k and the Chevrolet Volt at 10k, anything can still happen here, but i must say, at this point i Viktor got it right...

7) With Japan growing 22%, they are set to a 31k total number.

8) With the Leaf at 9k and the Outlander PHEV at 4k, Nissan's hatch has 90% probability of winning the 2016 title.

9) The European EV Market is growing at a 20% rate, so the final number will be around 233k, a bit below our forecasts.

10) With the Zoe, Outlander PHEV and Leaf all around 11k, it is too early to give a sure winner, but we were expecting more from the plug-in SUV...

11) Sales are down 61%(!), so the total number should be around 10-15k, much lower than our forecasts.

12) Another big miss, right now the most likely Best Sellers are the Tesla Model S, Volvo XC90 T8 or the BMW 330e.

13) I remember we had some difficulty doing this forecast, as we were afraid to be too conservative, but with growth at just 30%, the market is going for 45k by year end, within our forecasts.

14) The VW e-Golf is still #1, but not for long, the Mitsubishi Outlander PHEV seems unstoppable right now.

15) The UK market is up some 30% and headed to some 38k, now let's see how Brexit impacts the EV Market...

16) The Outlander PHEV will be #1 with 80% certainty, but the Mercedes C350e might still surprise.

17) The French EV market is up a healthy 53%, leading to some 42k, a win to Roland's forecast.

18) Renault Zoe has 7k, the #2 Nissan Leaf has 2k.

19) Looking just at the growth rate (8%), it this market would go for some 30k, but incentives kicking in, expect a tidal wave of registrations, so the 44k of Roland seems perfectly possible.

20) Quite frankly, anything can happen, as nobody knows who will benefit most from the incentives, but my bet now would be the BMW i3, currently #2 and receiving new batteries just in time for the new incentives.